Under the preliminary plan, investment in the Xinfei Merchant Guild's Giant Deer Island naval base would exceed twenty million gold coins, and construction was expected to take at least three years. It could be called the first truly massive project since the guild's founding.
Once the naval base was fully completed, the Xinfei Merchant Guild would have a foothold in the Southern Waters of the Endless Sea from which it could both launch attacks and defend itself.
The base's location was also exceptionally well chosen, commanding every sea route from the Southern Waters of the Endless Sea to the Stantin Duchy.
No ship seeking to reach the Stantin Duchy by sea could completely escape the base's reach. It was effectively a gate erected across the Southern Waters, leaving the Xinfei Merchant Guild with no further need to worry about surprise attacks from that direction.
For Xu Yi, however, this naval base was only an experiment.
Once he had accumulated enough experience, he would inevitably expand this network of naval bases across the Endless Sea when conditions were right. Eventually, they would cover the entire sea, forming an interconnected chain that, together with the smaller bases scattered across the islands, would give him comprehensive control over the Endless Sea.
His reason for doing this actually stemmed from a conjecture.
After observing all manner of details in the years since he had crossed over to the Sains Continent, Xu Yi had become certain that this world existed on a planet similar to Earth, rather than in some inexplicable separate space.
That being the case, he firmly believed that the Sains Continent could not be this world's only continent.
Moreover, every race on this continent had legends about other continents, indirectly supporting Xu Yi's conjecture.
Since this world had more than one continent,